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ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base

Dusty

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I got the ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks in! Well, the front ones anyhow
Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base 1f642
It was a bigger job than I had anticipated so I I'll have to do the rears this coming weekend, which should go much quicker because the rears are way easier to R&R. Luckily these are replacing an ICON spacer lift of the same height so it will sit level for my commute this week, with EXP's in the front and the spacer lift still in the back. I'll add some pics of the rears along with some shots of the Bronco to show how it sits, once I'm done (full disclosure: I work for ICON but I'm posting as a civilian who's happy with his latest mod LOL)

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0554X-2400w


These EXP shocks are pretty cool. A 2.5-inch diameter ICON performance shock that replaces the stock shock but keeps the stock coil spring and upper mount, making it a great middle ground between spacer lifts and the much more expensive full threaded coilover kits. They work with either the HOSS 1.0 (Hitachi) or HOSS 2.0 (Bilstein) factory coils.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0564X-2400w


I'm going to have to have a chat with the guys in engineering about a few revisions and clarifications they need to make to the instructions. They were going to install these for me but I wanted to tackle it myself so I could learn more about them and how they go in, so I brought them home to do in my own shop over the holiday weekend.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base Chanel-EXP-Install-001


Here's a pic of the EXP shock alongside the Hitachi shock (HOSS 1.0 aka non-Sasquatch). It's a rear EXP versus a front Hitachi.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w


If anyone has any questions about these let me know. I'm an expert on them now LOL. Oh yeah almost forgot, I added the tubular UCA's while I was at it. Probably should have already been running them with the spacer lift.
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kodiakisland

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What aspect of the install was the difficult, or time consuming part? Did having the spacer lift already on it add to the difficulty or was it something in the normal process of swapping over the springs or ?

I swapped out my Hitachis for stock Bilsteins and was fairly simple. Not much to those Hitachis, huh.
 
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Dusty

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What aspect of the install was the difficult, or time consuming part? Did having the spacer lift already on it add to the difficulty or was it something in the normal process of swapping over the springs or ?
It's just a lot of steps to R&R the strut. You almost have to take apart the entire front suspension in order to get the shock out. I suppose it's nothing out of the ordinary for people used to working on IFS 4X4's. But for me, coming from straight-axle Early Broncos, this thing is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma :) I can have the entire front end of my EB disassembled in 20 minutes.

Going from the spacer lift to the EXP's didn't really add any extra work. You have to disassemble and reassemble the strut assembly anyhow so the 2-piece spacer just comes apart with it. And now that I think about it, installing these EXP's is about the same amount of work as installing ICON's spacer lift.
 

kodiakisland

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Gotcha. I guess I've done the IFS thing a few times now. Maybe having the spacer on there made it more difficult to come out. My stock Hitachis basically fell out once I removed the rear LCA bolts.
I also had a wall mounted press to disassemble the shocks which makes it pretty quick.
 
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Dusty

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Gotcha. I guess I've done the IFS thing a few times now. Maybe having the spacer on there made it more difficult to come out. My stock Hitachis basically fell out once I removed the rear LCA bolts.
I also had a wall mounted press to disassemble the shocks which makes it pretty quick.
Yeah I think the spacers probably did make it a little harder to get the shock out. I didn't install the spacer kit myself, that was done at ICON during R&D. But the EXP assembly is longer going back in so you would still have to do the same amount of work to shoehorn it in there.
 

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Dusty

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Just drove it to work and first impressions are great so far. No off-road yet but I hit the gas through some dips and the EXP's are doing a way better job of damping rebound. compared to my old shocks (non-Sasquatch Hitachi's) which would bounce like a pogo stick LOL. I'll wait until I've got the rears in before I really wring it out but so far so good :)
 

Tricky Dick

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I got the ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks in! Well, the front ones anyhow
Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w
It was a bigger job than I had anticipated so I I'll have to do the rears this coming weekend, which should go much quicker because the rears are way easier to R&R. Luckily these are replacing an ICON spacer lift of the same height so it will sit level for my commute this week, with EXP's in the front and the spacer lift still in the back. I'll add some pics of the rears along with some shots of the Bronco to show how it sits, once I'm done (full disclosure: I work for ICON but I'm posting as a civilian who's happy with his latest mod LOL)

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w


These EXP shocks are pretty cool. A 2.5-inch diameter ICON performance shock that replaces the stock shock but keeps the stock coil spring and upper mount, making it a great middle ground between spacer lifts and the much more expensive full threaded coilover kits. They work with either the HOSS 1.0 (Hitachi) or HOSS 2.0 (Bilstein) factory coils.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w


I'm going to have to have a chat with the guys in engineering about a few revisions and clarifications they need to make to the instructions. They were going to install these for me but I wanted to tackle it myself so I could learn more about them and how they go in, so I brought them home to do in my own shop over the holiday weekend.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w


Here's a pic of the EXP shock alongside the Hitachi shock (HOSS 1.0 aka non-Sasquatch). It's a rear EXP versus a front Hitachi.

Ford Bronco ICON 2.5 EXP Shocks and Tubular UCA's on 2-Door Base DTS_0570X-2400w


If anyone has any questions about these let me know. I'm an expert on them now LOL. Oh yeah almost forgot, I added the tubular UCA's while I was at it. Probably should have already been running them with the spacer lift.
I have the tubulars on order. Do the EXPs lift higher than Sasquatch?
 
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Dusty

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I have the tubulars on order. Do the EXPs lift higher than Sasquatch?
Yeah I have my snap rings on the highest groove which is 2" taller than stock. Sasquatch is just over 1" taller. The lower groove on the HOSS 1.0 (non-Sasquatch) EXP's is supposed to be about equal to Sasquatch.
 

Tricky Dick

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Yeah I have my snap rings on the highest groove which is 2" taller than stock. Sasquatch is just over 1" taller. The lower groove on the HOSS 1.0 (non-Sasquatch) EXP's is supposed to be about equal to Sasquatch.
Sweet that's about what I want then, should give me about 1.5" over standard BL.
 
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Dusty

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Sweet that's about what I want then, should give me about 1.5" over standard BL.
For the HOSS 2.0 springs in your Badlands the EXP's have 3 grooves: stock height, 1-3/8" and 2" in the front.
 

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Tricky Dick

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For the HOSS 2.0 springs in your Badlands the EXP's have 3 grooves: stock height, 1-3/8" and 2" in the front.
Sounds like a winner
 

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Just drove it to work and first impressions are great so far. No off-road yet but I hit the gas through some dips and the EXP's are doing a way better job of damping rebound. compared to my old shocks (non-Sasquatch Hitachi's) which would bounce like a pogo stick LOL. I'll wait until I've got the rears in before I really wring it out but so far so good :)
Icons have always been great for me if you’re hauling ass. How is it in the slow speeds hitting some bumps? That’s usually where the downfall is.

and since we used to run the same spacer kit, does it sit an inch lower now or the same?
 
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Dusty

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Icons have always been great for me if you’re hauling ass. How is it in the slow speeds hitting some bumps? That’s usually where the downfall is.

and since we used to run the same spacer kit, does it sit an inch lower now or the same?
Like I said I've only driven it on my commute so far, but so far so good. From what little I can tell from these crappy California roads, the ride on-road is pretty good. You do "feel" the road just a little bit more. But that's to be expected. The EXP's don't have any adjustment in the compression damping like ICON's CDCV coilovers or other mfg's clicker shocks, so they're tuned at the factory with more bias toward aggressive off-road driving. If I was more interested in keeping a squishy ride on-road I would have just stuck with the stock shocks and spacers.

While I haven't had mine off-road yet with the EXP's, I did drive the ICON 4-door Bronco on EXP's to Moab and back for EJS, including several trails while I was out there for the week. A couple thousand miles of freeway and quite a bit of off-road, from rock crawling to high speed running trying to keep up with Bailey Cole and Dustin Sexton, sold me on these EXP's. Since I work for ICON I could choose full coilovers with CDCV's for this Bronco, but I deliberately chose the less expensive option because I think they're the perfect match for the build philosophy I've had for this rig.

As for the resulting height, I haven't put a tape on it but it seems about the same, maybe slightly lower in the front now (remember I haven't done the rear yet). That jives with the advertised lift height for the groove I used on the front EXP's versus the spacer lift.
 

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If I was more interested in keeping a squishy ride on-road I would have just stuck with the stock shocks and spacers.
important point here, thank you Dusty! I don’t run the bronco fast off road at all due to other limiting factors that keep the speed down (like a 37 on the back tailgate), so for me, a plusher ride on road and through the rocks makes more sense.

However, a lot of the bronco’s design elements underneath just scream that it was made to rip through the desert so I could see the reasoning.

Keep us updated on the ride off road :)
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